And Have a Nice Flight
by Kiipleny
Summary: (Formerly titled "Who Da Turtle?") "Can't a mutant turtle hitch a highly illegal ride on an international freighter plane from Australia back to New York without having to put up with pajama-clad maniacs stealing his in-flight peanuts and trying to knock him senseless?" Apparently not.
1. Chapter 1

**~~ This was originally going to be the beginning of a real story, with chapters and action and everything, hence the random details about the flight and Australia and such. Still might be. Who knows?**

**First time posting any writings of mine. Well, if I'm being honest, this is my first time actually WRITING any writings of mine. . . until today all of my fanfictionesque musings have remained locked in my head. Maybe after this I'll realize that it is better that way and my laptop will stop glaring accusingly at me every time I look at a blank document. Maybe . . . we will see.**

**I'm not going to beg for "R&R" or anything. It would be nice, but not necessary. I think I'll keep writing my original idea for the story no matter what unless something terrible happens; like I get kidnapped by Cap'n Hook and shot out of a cannon or Leo and Raph portal to my dimension to punish me for what I plan to do to them and their little bros if the story actuall happens. . . *evil chuckle***

**I guess I should stop ranting now and let you read the first section of chapter one, which is only _slightly_ longer than this note. . .**

Chapter one:

_'What are the Foot doing here?' _Michelangelo thought as he caught an incoming blade with the chain of one of his nunchucks. _'Don't they have something better to do? Like robbing old ladies or de-linting their black pajamas or something?' _Twisting the chain, he yanked the blade out of the hand of the ninja in front of him and flicked it behind him, catching another in the face with its hilt just as he was sneaking up on the turtle, effectively knocking him out, before returning to the first Foot-member with a loud *crack* as the wood of his nunchuck struck the skull of the off-balance minion-of-evil. _'I mean, seriously. Dude. You're taking this kill-all-turtles thing a little far, doncha think?' _Mikey continued his mental tirade against the Foot as he fell into the familiar rhythm of combat. Block. Kick. Dodge. _WHACK._ Block again. Punch a face. _Whack Whack WHACK_.

_'Can't a mutant turtle hitch a highly illegal ride on an international freighter plane from Australia back to New York without having to put up with pajama-clad maniacs stealing his in-flight peanuts and trying to knock him senseless?' _he ranted in his mind, dodging a knife as it was thrown at his head. Apparently not. The in-flight peanuts were only in Mikey's mind, of course; after ten hours of flying cramped in the back corner of the cargo bay, he had already longing for the cheesy deliciousness of native New York pizza, Doritos, gummy worms, and unlimited cans of sweet Dr. Pepper. Being reminded that their journey wasn't even halfway over did nothing to ease the pain in his aching stomach.

A sharp kick to his midsection brought the youngest of the turtles rudely back to the present. _'Oh, right. Foot ninjas. Duh.'_ Falling backward, Mikey angled his body so that was able to push off of the floor and flip back to his feet rather than crash flat on his shell. He faced the half-dozen figures in front of him, blinking in surprise that the last second acrobatics had actually worked. The shock only lasted a moment before a self-satisfied smirk plastered itself on his face. "Who da turtle?" Mikey asked the hesitating ninjas, nunchucks out and spinning. When they answered by tightening their grips on their weapons and advancing threateningly, he carried on in his best pro-wrestling announcer's voice: "That would be the one, the only, MICHELANGELO!" His words were punctuated by thuds and meaty smacks as he leaped into the fray once more.

To Be Continued . . . ?


	2. Chapter 2

**~~Well. . . I got a couple WONDERFUL reviews on my first chapter. Thanks to you three who wrote! :) Although, let me point out that when I wrote and then decided to upload that section, I was working on over 36 hours with no sleep and little food. . . Don't ask me why, I'm just crazy. My point being, I didn't really know what I was getting myself into. This website is a wonderful motivator, but also a ball and chain-type curse. I hate disappointing people, and now that I have 4 (5? I don't remember exactly) followers, I don't want to let them down by not continuing the story, because I hate people who do that. *sigh* So here we go.**

**Random question: Is it really necessary to state that I don't own TMNT in every post? You'd think it would be obvious. This site is called FAN FICTION after all, implying that it is FANS writing about FICTIONAL characters; fans by definition (or implication, whatever) do not own what they are fanning :P A person wouldn't be called a fan of their own work, would they? Honestly. So unless I get screamed at by the gods of copyright and legalness, I am going to only say it once: I DO NOT OWN THE NINJA TURTLES. *whew* now that that's over with, let us continue.**

**Oh, and in case you were wondering, this story takes place after the turtles of the 2003 series get rid of the big evil demon Shredder and the whole season with the magic and ninja tribunal and such, but before they ever go into the future. They also don't have the ability to use their magic or special weapons or avatars. . . which doesn't really make sense, but it's my story so there. -Wait, not MY story, as stated above. . . but you get the point. :)**

***I promise, not all of my intros/author's notes will be this long.**

Chapter Two:

_Thirty minutes earlier. . ._

Donny _hated_ flying. Hated it with a passion.

It was irrational. The logical part of Don's head was telling him how, statistically speaking, the chance of dying in a plane crash is about 11 million to 1. Also, the vast majority of crashes occur during take-off and landing, so, having survived the initial lift-off, his chance of dying was again cut in half, bringing the probability of his death to more like 22 million to 1. Even further, there is a one in three chance that he would survive even IF the plane fell out of the air.*

The rest of Donny's brain couldn't help but disagree. The odds don't do you much good if you happen to be the one in 22 million.

Sure, the chances of dying in a plane crash were small. Minuscule even. But at least in a car crash, there is a much better survival rate than 33%. At 80 mph, the chances are still almost 70% that he would come out relatively unharmed, and that's not even including the extra security of the BattleShell, which has a much higher safety rating than the average human car (he should know, he built it specifically.) What about being caught on a sinking boat? Piece of cake. Being a mutant turtle has its advantages; Don and his brothers can survive for hours underwater and are very powerful swimmers. Train wreck? When would he ever be on a train? But even then, there is always the option to bail off the side of the track where only a few feet, a dozen at most, would separate him from the nice, solid ground, as opposed to the thousands upon thousands of feet of empty air that he would fall through if thrown from a plane. A plane like the one that he was sitting in the back of at this moment.

Looking around, Donatello tried to calm his erratic heartbeat by once again examining his brothers. This last mission had been one of their strangest missions yet, and that was saying a lot, considering that in the past, they had been accidently beamed to the other side of the universe to fight aliens that looked like dinosaurs, sent back in time to _actually _fight real dinosaurs and defeat a megalomaniacal demon, and joined up with their sworn enemies against an _army_ of demons summoned by the real Shredder (the other Shredder being pushed off a roof and squished by a water tower, blown up, and beheaded, still coming back to life, and somehow not even being the real thing, only an alien war criminal) and turning into dragons to destroy him.

Come to think of it, maybe this mission was pretty normal.

It had started when Leo had disappeared during a game of ninja tag. It was only for a couple days, and he'd come back to the Lair exhausted and stumbling, but otherwise unhurt as far as Don could tell. Raph almost killed Leo after catching him before he could do a face-plant on the concrete. Raph would never be one to admit it, but Leo's unannounced absences are always the hardest on him. Unannounced and altogether too frequent for Don's taste.

After Donny got him to eat something and rest a little, Leo had told his brothers about an impending disaster that could destroy the world as we know it. _–insert dramatic music and a cliché collective gasp from the audience- _It included a rogue inter-dimensional portal and a large fault-line in southern Australia. Should the portal have opened all the way, the raw energy output from its unstable doorway would upset the planet, causing natural disasters across the world, not to mention unleashing whatever evil force had opened the portal in the first place and already used it to wreak havoc over multiple dimensions.

Don's initial thoughts had been ones of exasperation. _'Why are _**we**_ always having to deal with planetary and inter-dimensional crises? Four teenaged turtles from the sewers of New York City are hardly the best candidates for an on-call Earth-rescue force. Wait. What am I talking about? We're not "on-call;" the only people who know about us are either citizens at the lower end of the political scale (if Casey Jones could be considered to be _**on**_ the scale at all) or criminals and thugs and evil scientists that want to kill us. We do all of this out of the goodness of our hearts; well, maybe the goodness of Leo's honor, Raph's cursed sense of revenge/hit-everything-that-moves attitude, Mikey's comic-book-skewed perception of heroism, and my knowledge that humanity is simply not equipped, mentally or technologically, to deal with anything more than mundane uprisings.' _

After these thoughts, Don had quickly joined his brothers in preparation for their trip to Australia. He insisted on each turtle wearing a tech-pack equipped with a low-powered jet-thruster and a small missile launcher, along with medical supplies and radio transmitters, just in case. These suggestions were met with little resistance; they had long since learned that a mutant-turtle's luck will turn sour whenever the opportunity arises, and they would have been able to get out of many scrapes had they been more prepared. Powering up the TurtleSub, the ninja clan bade farewell to Master Splinter, Casey, and April within two hours.

The mission had been accomplished, though not without much hardship and many injuries (but none life-threatening in the least, for once), the portal closed and the evil behind it trapped on the other side, stuck in a ruined dimension. Don felt a little bad for the survivors of that place who were left behind, few that they were, but they'd had no choice. Leo had offered most of them refuge on Earth, but there simply had not been enough time.**

Mikey was mumbling something about peanuts and absentee flight attendants. Don couldn't help but grin slightly at this; the youngest turtle was not coping with the flight any better than Donny himself was, albeit for an entirely different reason. While Don was afraid of falling to his death in a ball of fire, Michelangelo was more worried about the remaining ten hours without food in his belly. Granted, it had been fifteen hours already since their last meal, ten since they had hurriedly hitched a ride in the back of a cargo plane on a direct route to New York (the TurtleSub, unfortunately, was sunk and therefore unavailable for the return trip, much to Donatello's displeasure, and an alternate route was hastily put together), but there were worse things than getting a little rumble in the tummy.

"Shaddup, would ya? We're _all_ hungry, shell-fer-brains, and we don't need ya rubbin' it in." Raphael was grumpy. Then again, Raph was _always_ grumpy. He was probably just slightly more irritated than usual because of his ankle. He'd sprained it during the mission, and though it would heal up no problem, it was still painful and resting it on the vibrating metal floor of the cargo bay wasn't helping.

Don was more worried about Leo. He'd been exhausted going into the mission, and that, coupled with his self-sacrificing personality, protectiveness of his younger brothers, and the fact that he seems to be a magnet for misfortune, had resulted in him receiving the worst of the injuries. Nothing major, just a dislocated left shoulder (which Don had easily popped back into place), a twisted right knee (which had been wrapped tightly), and a nasty scrape above his right eye, along with multiple other minor cuts and bruises that they all shared, standard from any fight, be it against Purple Dragons, the Foot, or evil dimension-hungry criminal lord aliens and their army of other assorted dimension-hungry criminal aliens. No biggie.

Leonardo was leaning back against a securely tied-down crate, left arm laid over his plastron, eyes closed, presumably sleeping. Presumably. Don doubted it because he could see tiny indications of wakefulness, even if Leo was trying to hide them: a slight upward curve to his lips as he listened to Mike and Raph's argument over food, a bit of tenseness in his neck that never left unless he was unconscious or safe at home in the Lair (if even then), and a tiny hitch in his breathing whenever the plane passed through a rougher patch of air, jolting his knee or shoulder.

"Don't make me get over there and sock ya one. I meant it, Mikey. If I hear one more peep about your dang peanuts or pizza or gummy worms, or whatever the heck else, I swear you will wish we'd left ya back in Australia with the kangaroos." Don couldn't help but chuckle to himself. He had to admit, that was an appealing proposition.

"It's okay, Mikey. We'll be home in just a few hours, then we'll have Case bring over a couple dozen boxes of pizza supreme and April will cook up a batch of cookies just for you and we'll have a movie marathon, your pick. How does that sound?" Don knew Leo wasn't asleep.

Michelangelo seemed to think this over for a moment, then: "I guess that would be okay. Will the cookies be oatmeal? Because I definitely won't settle for anything less than double chocolate M&M."

"_Definitely_ not oatmeal," Leo reassured him, wincing almost imperceptibly as he shifted his knee to a more comfortable position. "Now go ahead and get some sleep. It'll pass the ti-"

Leo was cut off as the plane dipped sharply downward.

"What the-" Raph was cut off too as the plane violently righted itself, throwing him to the floor. He had jumped to his feet, sais out at the first movement, much to the displeasure of his sprained ankle.

"What's going on?" Mikey yelled. "Are we crashing? Are we going to die? I'm too young!" Nice, Mikey.

"Probably just some turbulence. Shouldn't be anything to worry about," said Don, trying to reassure himself just as much as the others. _'Just a rough patch. Nothing to worry about,'_ he repeated to himself, trying to unclench his muscles which had seized with the first loss in altitude.

That was when the back of the plane was ripped off and Foot ninjas with jetpacks flooded through the hole.

**Hmm. . . totally not what I was expecting to write, but it works. :D**

**Random Note: I wrote the first page of this (3 pages) in seriously five minutes (for perspective, it took my almost an hour to write the little half page section one a couple days ago). I'd just watched the series finale of BBC's Merlin and was FREAKING OUT. I seriously ran around the house screaming. Then I had so much leftover energy that I decided to put it to good use writing about my other favorite characters: My Ninja Turtles! (NOT mine, by the way, just clearing that up. I own no rights to them. . .) But seriously, it was SO SAD. And wonderful and amazing and heart-breaking at the same time. D: Go watch the show. After you review. :) -I know I said before that I wouldn't ask for R&R, but I find myself strangely addicted to them after receiving a few. . . :) But still, don't feel pressured. :) **

**I think Raph's PoV is next. . . :)**

*** These statistics being based on a collection of fortuitous information of course, not a controlled experiment. . . just clearing that up :P**

**** I think I might go back and write a story about their weird Australia-portal mission after I finish this story. Maybe. We will see. . .**


	3. Chapter 3

**School is starting again, so I don't know how often I'll be able to write, but I'll try. **

**Let me just say, I love Raphael. :D **

Chapter Three:

Raphael was NOT amused. Not only was he tired, sore, and furious at having had to abandon an entire dimension to the domination of that. . . _creep_, now Mikey was moaning and complaining nonstop about peanuts and Dr. Pepper, only reminding Raph of how dang _hungry_ he was as well.

"Shaddup, would ya? We're _all_ hungry, shell-fer-brains, and we don't need ya rubbin' it in," he growled dangerously. Mikey didn't take the hint.

"All I'm sayin', bro, is that this establishment here is _seriously_ lacking in the customer-service department." Whether Michelangelo had a death wish or was just plain oblivious to his impending doom wasn't quite discernible. "I'm just sooooo hungry!" This last statement was drawn out in a whine, making him sound like a little kid again. "I could eat an entire zebra!"

Raph was inclined to agree with him, his stomach betraying him with a loud grumble, but there was no way in heck that he was going to agree with his baby brother and encourage his complaints. "Don't make me get over there and sock ya one. I meant it, Mikey. If I hear one more peep about your dang peanuts or pizza or gummy worms, or whatever the heck else, I swear you will wish we'd left ya back in Australia with the kangaroos." The image of a sunburned Mikey being kicked around in the dirt by a couple of overgrown jackrabbits did a little to ease Raph's bad mood, almost allowing a small grin to pass his features. But then Leo started placating Mikey with promises of pizza, cookies, and movie nights,

_'Dang,' _Raph thought to himself. _'I thought he was finally asleep. He really got his shell kicked back in Australia.'_ Though the hothead would never admit it out loud, he worried about his only older brother. Whenever they got in fights, Leonardo usually came out worse off than the rest of them. But not because he was a worse fighter; not at all. It was because he was _so_ good of a ninja that he felt his mind could focus on his younger brothers as well as his own fights. While this never really distracted him from his own opponent, it allowed him to see theirs', giving him time to step in to deflect a blow for them, or even take a direct hit if it meant sparing the others an injury. Then he would be back to fighting his own battle until the next brother needed his help. Then the next.

Leo's energy and ferocity seemed limitless during a battle; it wasn't until the danger had passed that Fearless would show pain or exhaustion, and even then he did his best to hide it, like right now.

Raph listened to Leo and Mike talking about cookies and could hear how tired his leader was. It was only a tiny change, maybe a rougher timbre to the ends of his phrases, or a slight lessening of the usual strength behind his words. But to Raphael, it was as plain as day.

_'He'll be fine,'_ Raph thought to himself. _'He always is. Nothing can keep our Fearless Leader down for long.' _ Grinning slightly to himself, he leaned back and closed his eyes, looking forward to a nice, hot shower and those double chocolate M&M cookies that Mikey was demanding once they got back to New York.

"What the-" Raphael's daydreaming was cut short as he jumped to his feet, weapons out, hissing in pain as he tweaked his sprained ankle. The plane was falling!

Just as suddenly, the plane leveled out, sending him crashing back onto his shell.

Mikey was screaming about being too young to die and Leo was calling out to Raph, asking if he was okay. Don, however, took the spotlight, capturing everyone's attention with a cry: "Foot ninjas! To the rear!"

Flipping to his feet (again landing painfully on his foot), Raph took up a defensive position in front of his brothers. The entire back of the plane had been blown off and shadowy figures were flowing into the cargo bay like black blood seeping from a wound. "Don't these jokers know how to use a door?" Raph grumbled, trying to overcome his shock. What were the Foot doing here? They hadn't even been involved in the whole Australia-Alternate-Dimension thing.

But the time for questions would have to wait, because the four weary turtles were then surrounded by ninjas and once again fighting for their lives.

Raph was dispatching ninjas left and right, all pain in his ankle forgotten, but they just kept coming. Struggling through the horde, he tried to locate his brothers while avoiding getting his arm sliced off, or worse.

After a few tense minutes of the endless cycle of dodge, hit, flip, stab, and kick, he found himself fighting next to Donny, nearly getting his head knocked off by his bo staff before he realized that the person behind him was his brother.

"We need to get out of here!" Raph called over his shoulder.

"If you hadn't noticed, Raph," Donny grunted, catching a sword stroke above his head before kicking the attacker back, "we are currently somewhere above Africa, about 25-30 _thousand_ _feet _in the freaking _air_! Just where are you suggesting we go?!"

"Hey, you're the genius," Raph snarled back, still looking around for the youngest and oldest members of their clan. "Ya seen the others?"

He was interrupted by what seemed to be a war cry coming from a few dozen feet to their left of "… MICHELANGELO!" Glancing over, Raph saw a parting in the heaving mass of black as Mikey executed a spin kick to clear an area around himself. Pride flared within him. Mikey may be an annoying pain in the shell, but he was still one heck of a ninja turtle.

"Mikey! Get yer butt over here!" Raph saw the affirmation in his youngest brother's face as their eyes met, before he was once again distracted by an awe-wielding, pajama-wearing punk in front of him.

"You just don't know when ta give up, do ya?" Quickly taking him down, Raph looked for Leo, but couldn't see anything in the sea of black.

Just then, the plane gave another horrifying lurch, sending many of the ninjas to their knees. A sickening screeching groan could be heard of metal on metal.

"Um, Raph?" Don called out hesitantly. "I think the plane is falling apart."

"Thanks, Captain Obvious," Raph sent back, but any further comments were replaced by screams from all parties, turtle and human alike, as the plane was ripped in two. _'Time to go!'_

Grabbing his two younger brothers by the tops of their shells, Raph pulled them to the torn edge of their section of the plane.

"Donny!" he yelled, trying to make himself heard over the wailing of the wind. "Get Mikey out of here! I've got to find Leo!" Don nodded and turned to Mikey before quickly catching Raph's arm before he could dash off.

"Use your thruster packs when you jump to get yourself away from the falling wreckage, but then just let yourself fall until you are only a couple hundred feet from the ground; we don't have enough fuel left after Australia to support sustained flight!" Raph nodded impatiently and shoved the younger turtles forward.

"We'll find you guys later!" He had to get to Leo.

The Foot seemed much less interested in the turtles now that they were all falling to their deaths together. They were all running to the nearest opening and flinging themselves into the air, their jetpacks activating and pulling them away. The thinning crowd of ninjas allowed Raph one glimpse of his older brother, slumped against the wall, chest heaving, and one sword missing, before he was lost again.

"Leo!" Raph cried, struggling towards him. But before he could take more than two steps, a panicked Foot soldier crashed into him, sending them both over the edge and into open air.

**Will they survive?! Who knows! Muahaha! *Evil smile* Hopefully it won't be too long before Chapter Four is up. :) Any suggestions for plot developments and/or constructive criticism are welcome (though I can't guarantee that they will be acted upon.)**


	4. Chapter 4

**I'm back! Three very busy and exhausting days of the semester done, and I s****_till_**** managed another chapter! Woo!**

…ooo000ooo…

Chapter 4:

"We'll find you guys later!" These words were barely heard before the wind caught them and whisked them away.

_Falling._

Mikey was screaming. Not his characteristic girly-scream of fright when he gets startled. Not his screams of laughter and mock-terror as he ran from his older brothers after pulling off a particularly good prank. Not his slightly more realistic screams of terror when Raphael caught up and pinned him to the ground after said prank. No. This was a serious scream. The words "I'm going to die, I'm going to die, Raph pushed us out of a plane and we're going to die!" kept playing on a loop in his head, gaining a more frantic edge and higher pitch with every repetition.

Donatello was holding tight to his little brother's arm with his left hand, his bo staff firmly held in his right.

"Mikey!" His voice couldn't be heard over the wind, so he pulled himself closer and hollered in Michelangelo's ear. "MIKEY!"

The hysterical turtle stopped screaming long enough for Donny to maneuver their bodies to that they were face to face.

"When I say so, I need you to gradually increase the power on your thruster pack. Can you do that?" Mikey nodded, eyes wide. Trying not to panic himself, Don was gauging the distance to the ground. They were over a dense rainforest. Landing was going to be tricky.

His brain working at lightning speed, Don figured that the plane had probably been at about 20,000 feet when they jumped, since it had lost altitude already even before it was ripped in half (_'How did that happen by the way? FOCUS, Donny!')_. That would give them approximately 40 seconds before they hit the ground. At least 8 of those seconds had passed already, leaving them with only 32 remaining before becoming turtle pancakes. He rounded down to 25 seconds, just to be safe. That meant that in order to slow their descent to a survivable velocity, they would have to fire their thrusters. . .

"NOW!" There was a jolt as both turtles' packs activated, causing a whiplash effect as their bodies were caught between two opposing directional velocities. Don realized immediately that it wouldn't be enough. He had designed the packs to aid in maneuverability and maybe to jump a small building, not to pull two 150 lb mutant teenagers out of free-fall. They were simply moving too fast.

"Brace yourself!" Mikey latched on to his brother, wrapping his arms around his shell. It was definitely time to start screaming again.

Four seconds later, they entered the tree line, crashing through branches and other assorted foliage. Mikey felt and heard a sickening _crack_ just before losing consciousness.

…ooo000ooo…

". . . Mikey. . ." The voice seemed to be coming from far away. ". . . Miiiiikey. . ." Who was that angelic voice, beckoning him to the light? "Mikey!" Gee, this was one pushy angel.

"Michelangelo! Wake up!"

"Ooh. . ." Mikey groaned in pain. "I think I've broken something." He still wasn't fully conscious.

"Oh, you mean this?" Something was pulled out from underneath him and waved in front of his face.

"What is it?" Mikey's vision was still fuzzy and not all of his attention was completely in reality yet.

"Only my most prized possession, you jerk." The angel was mad now. Mikey better wake up and face the music.

"Huh?" Blearily he looked around. A face was above him, silhouetted against the light streaming through the rainforest canopy. "My angel!" Reaching out, Mike grabbed the figure around the neck and pulled it into a big hug.

"Hey! Get off! Mikey, let go this instant!" These words were punctuated by a hard rap on his skull. Letting go, the youngest turtle's vision slowly focused onto the beautiful face of his . . . brother.

"Yuck!" Mikey exclaimed, pushing him away and sitting up. "Donny! What did you do with my angel?!"

"I'm sorry, little brother. You were rejected from heaven because you _landed_ on my _staff_ and snapped it in _half_!" Another hard tap to the skull. Mikey saw now what Donny had been waving in his face earlier. His bo staff was in a bad way, broken in the middle and only held together limply by the ribbon of purple fabric wound around it.

Mikey looked up in horror to his older brother's face, his eyes threatening to spill tears. Donatello's eyes, on the other hand, were hard, eye ridges drawn together under his bandana in a scowl.

"I- I'm. . ." Mikey looked at the staff, then back up to his brother's fierce gaze.

Donny mentally rolled his eyes. No one could ever stay mad at Michelangelo. Not with those big blues glistening and that green lower lip trembling. Already, his anger was starting to abate.

"Whatever. It's okay, Mikey." He pulled his brother into a gentle hug, gently massaging his shell. "Don't cry, bro. I know it wasn't your fault. And it's not a big deal; just a piece of wood." But it wasn't just a piece of wood. Though his anger toward Mikey may be disappearing, the loss was still keenly felt. That staff had been his constant companion for almost as long as he could remember. It had survived countless fights with thugs, thieves, ninjas, and demons, saving both his life and the lives of his siblings time and time again. The polished wood shone, testament to the time Donatello spent nearly every day rubbing oil along its length, masking dents and scratches and strengthening the staff into something akin to petrified wood.

All of that effort and strength, all of those ninjas whacked and buildings leapt, and _this _is the end? A freak plane crash and a simple _snap_?

Mikey was silent. He seemed to be in shock; just one more thing to add to this horrible day. He couldn't imagine what Donny was feeling. Just thinking about if one of his nunchucks ever broke made him shudder. As that thought came to him, his eyes widened and he quickly reached toward his belt, needing to reassure himself that his own weapons were still there. He breathed a sigh of relief as his fingertips brushed the sticks of hard wood and their connecting chains.

Standing up, the two turtles took inventory of their situation. Surprisingly, neither was seriously hurt, despite their hard landing. Donatello had a dark bruise on his shoulder and scratches from falling through branches, but nothing was broken. Mikey could feel a lump forming on the back of his head where he had hit the ground, and his side was sore from landing on Don's staff, but based on his brother's initial reaction to his broken weapon, he judged it best not to bring that particular fact up.

Looking around, the reality of their predicament seemed to hit the teens for the first time. They had jumped from a plane, and though they had miraculously survived, their current position wasn't much better than the one they'd just left. They were stranded in the middle of a jungle that could have come straight out of a movie set. It was all there, the sky-scraping trees, the vines, the colorful plants, and the _noise_. There was a constant stream of background sounds, a mix of hums, buzzes, rustling foliage, intermittent squawks and screeches from unseen animals. Somewhere nearby there was the sound of water running.

"Hey, Donny? Um, where are we?"

Donny sighed. Why was _he_ always expected to know everything?

"I don't know, Mikey. Somewhere in the middle of Africa. If I had to guess, I'd say the Congo, but I can't really be sure . . ." He trailed off at the stricken look on his baby brother's face. He quickly attempted to reassure him. "It'll be okay, Mikey. Let's just concentrate on finding Raph and Leo, and then we can all go home together." Slinging his arm around Mike's shoulders and tucking his broken staff into his belt, Donatello looked around, trying to decide where they were supposed to go. Originally, his plan had been to look for a smoke trail from the burning wreckage of the plane and follow it, hoping to find his older brothers safely landed somewhere between the two locations. (_'Or their bodies in the rubble at the crash site,'_ he couldn't help thinking, but he quickly cut off that train of thought.) Glancing upward, the turtle realized that a smoke trail would be useless, as they could barely even see the rapidly dimming sky at all through the dense branches of the trees.

_'Crap.'_ Donatello looked back at his pale brother in silence as the daylight continued to disappear, for once in his life not having a clue what to do.

_'Raph, Leo. You guys had better be okay.'_

…ooo000ooo…

**So, what dya think? I know nothing much happened, but I think a little Mikey/Donny bonding was needed, even just this little bit. **

**What happened to Leo, you ask? Raphael? You'll just have to wait and see. . . **

**Bwahahaha. . . . :D **


	5. Chapter 5

**Okay, okay. I know it's been like, two months since I last updated, and for that I apologize profusely. This semester has been way more stressful than last semester, plus having work and other craziness, then getting deathly ill in the middle of it, then two and a half weeks of midterms and grumpiness. . . Ugh. I've been working on this one or two sentences at a time for the past couple weeks, so be forgiving. Or not. Whatever. :P**

**Anyway, here we go with Raphael. :) **

…ooo000ooo…

Chapter 5:

The last things Raphael saw before being knocked out of the plane were the remaining crowd of black ninjas and a brief glimpse of his brother's green skin, darkened with emerging bruises.

"NO!" Raph cursed at the figure who was responsible for his separation from Leo. "You stupid, cowardly, son –" But then his words were lost in the rushing wind. The terrified Foot soldier was clinging to his arm in desperation, unaware (or simply not caring) that his chosen lifeline was one of the turtles he was sworn to despise.

The ground was rapidly approaching. Kicking into survival mode, Raph immediately activated his thruster pack full throttle, realizing too late that he should have eased into it as his neck began to throb from the violent whiplash. Looking down again and noting his extreme speed, he knew that his little tech pack wasn't going to be enough.

"Turn on yer thruster!" Raph barked at the ninja that was still hanging on to his arm like some bizarre bracelet. He growled when he got no response and reached over to activate the superior jet pack himself.

The Foot gear **[haha. . . punny]** was much more powerful than the turtle's little tech pack, almost ripping the ninja out of Raph's grasp before he could find a better hold. They were almost to the tree line.

…ooo000ooo…

After crashing through a few feet of dense foliage, the turtle was able to grab hold of a thick branch and hang on, dropping the Foot soldier onto the branch below him.

As soon as he was steady, Raph immediately began to climb back toward the sky, using the last juices of fuel in his thruster to take some of the force off of his sprained ankle. After an agonizingly slow minute, a red-masked face poked through the top of the canopy.

A monstrous black smoke trail marked the path of the cargo plane as its pieces fell toward the earth. Spotting the aircraft itself rapidly falling toward the west, Raph could still see black shapes flying off of the wreckage like flying rats fleeing a sinking ship. A smaller jet, NOT broken into multiple pieces, was following the plane, picking up the jetpacked Foot ninjas as they threw themselves to relative safety.

_'Come on, Leo…'_ He couldn't tell if any of the falling figures were his elder brother. Raph didn't know which would be worse: Leo falling possibly to his death after jumping from the plane; being taken back to the Foot jet as a prisoner; or still being on the plane when it-

A muffled _crash_ and a great plume of smoke underscored the last thought as the plane finally hit the ground.

…ooo000ooo…

_'Uuughhowww. . .'_ Green eyes blinked slowly open. _'Where-? Wh-What?' _Turning his head was very uncomfortable, so he settled for trying to make his vision focus on the figure directly above him. _'Is that-? Crap. I'm in trouble…'_

There was a turtle sitting against the trunk of the tree mere feet above him. The recently-awoken Foot ninja tensed, terrified that any movement would bring much unwanted attention (and fists) down on his already aching head. _'It's the red one. Oh crap ohcrapohcrap . . .'_ But to his surprise, the mutant simply sat still, staring off into the distance as the sunlight began to dim.

Time passed, the ninja didn't know how much. It could have been ten minutes, or it could have been over an hour, but eventually the uncomfortableness of his position demanded his attention. Hardly daring to breathe, he slowly flexed his fingers and drew his arms closer to his torso. Then he wiggled his toes, just to make sure that he could and because it seemed like one of those things you just have to do.

The freak above him didn't stir.

Thus encouraged, the Foot soldier turned his head slightly to the left and right, trying to work out the stiffness that had set in, before fully taking in his surroundings._ 'What the- How did I miss the fact that I'm dangling over a branch in the hugest tree I've ever seen?' _Then he made the mistake of looking down.

…ooo000ooo…

**Yes, it is very short. But I have more written! I just haven't found a good ending point for Raph's POV yet, and I'm in the middle of a rare bout of generosity, so I thought I'd give you this half now.**

**If you have questions about anything in this chapter, they will most likely be answered in the second part of this section, which may or may not be posted in the coming days. . . I would promise, but we now know how well THAT turns out. . . :)**


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